The present invention relates to a diagnosis system, which is mainly used at small-scale medical facilities.
There has been known a diagnosis system, in which a technician uses an image generating apparatus, such as a CR (Computed Radiography) apparatus and the same to photograph a subject patient, who has visited a medical facility, applies an image processing, such as a gradation processing, onto the obtained images and operates to output the images, to which the image processing has been applied, so that a medical doctor can analyze the medical images.
With respect to the diagnosis system, a plurality of persons in charge play respective roles to proceed the diagnosis as following. A receptionist receives a patient, who has visited the medical facility, and issues an examination order (a receptionist); A technician actually radiographs the patient in the radiographing room and forms digital image data; A technician (who has been selected from general technicians) or the same determines whether or not the gradation of the image is capable of being used for diagnosis and corrects the contrast and density of the image if necessary; And a person in charge of analyzing (a medical doctor) determines whether or not there is an illness based on the image.
In large scale medical facilities (they will be called large scale facilities hereinafter) in which conventional diagnosis systems are supposed to be used, there exist a plurality of image generating apparatuses and a plurality of technicians for operating the image generating apparatuses, and there are separately provided a console for operating the image generating apparatus for the plurality of technicians and a viewer by which the medical doctor checks the image data, as sharing respective roles. Thus, there has been a possibility that the patient mismatches with his or her image data by mistake. Accordingly, in order to prevent this, a system for connecting respective apparatuses through network, issuing ID at respective apparatuses and correlating the results of work processes of the respective apparatuses with each other is proposed (for example, see Patent Document 1).
With respect to the location for playing the roles described above in these systems, in many hospitals, a reception desk and a radiology department are separately and remotely located. For example, the reception desk is located in the first floor and the radiology department is located in the basement. Further, it is common that a plurality of technicians use a plurality of radiographing apparatuses to simultaneously execute radiographing and a plurality of patients constantly exist at respective processes. In order to prevent the mistake occurring in the correlation of the formed image with the patient, methods for adding ID onto works of respective process and correlating respective works with each other via a network of HIS (Hospital Information System) and RIS (Radiology Information System) are conducted (for example, see Patent Documents 2 and 3).
For example, at the reception desk located in the first floor, examination items (radiographic items) are determined based on interview of a patient and the examination items are registered together with the patient name. Based on this action, a patient list, to which additional patient information will be added whenever it is necessary, is generated and the patient list will be displayed on the workstation (it will be called “WS” hereinafter), which is set on the reception desk located in the first floor. Simultaneously, the patient list described above is displayed on the console located in the radiography department located in B1 (basement) via network of RIS/HIS. (Here, a “console” denotes a workstation for displaying the settings of radiography condition, examination order information of RIS/HIS and images obtained by radiographing the patient. It is common that the total number of the consoles is plural in order to improve the decentrized processing efficiency. These consoles are connected each other via network. When a predetermined ID has been selected at a console out of the consoles, in order to avoid duplicated radiographing in the plurality of technicians, a method for making the patient list to notify that the examination is under process is utilized (for example, flashing display, changing the color of the patient list or outputting beep sound when the same inspection is specified).
The technician of the radiography department selects the examination ID to be radiographed from now on in the displayed patient lists by using the console located near the technician, and registers the ID (the cassette ID) of a CR plate (cassette) to be used. Based on this action, for example, the registered cassette ID is displayed in the cassette ID column of the patient list. The technician, for example, brings three cassettes with him or her and moves to a radiographing room to take radiation images of the patient. After that the cassette, onto which radiation images have been recorded, is read by a reading apparatus. The reading apparatus reads the cassette ID adhered onto the cassette, which has been inserted therein, transmits the cassette ID together with image data and finally correlates the examination ID (a patient ID) with the generated image data. The generated image data is transmitted to the console, by which the technician had selected the examination ID, and is displayed on the console. At this step, the technician checks the radiation image positioning, conducts radiographing again when the positioning is not appropriate, and determines whether or not the density and contrast corrections and a frequency emphasis process should be applied. After that the generated image data is stored in an analysis-waiting (diagnosis-waiting) server. A medical doctor for analyzing images analyzes the image (conducts diagnosis) by selecting and displaying the image related to a predetermined patient out of images, which have been stored in the analysis-waiting server on the workstation in a diagnosis room (many of the workstations have a high definition monitor for the viewer function).
In the system utilized in a large scale facility described above, with respect to the information affecting medical insurance point calculation, such as whether or not the radiographing conducted for the patient is simple radiographing or radiographing using a contrast agent (medium), the system is arranged to be able to consolidate the all information items into RIS /HIS sever for controlling by registering the examination ID of the patient, the cassette ID, and correlating the photographed images to the patient.
However, according to the survey conducted by the inventors of this invention, in the case of relatively small scale medical facilities (it will be called small scale facilities hereinafter) such as a small medical clinic, in many cases, the image generating apparatuses installed are not many. Further, in many cases, an assistant to the medical doctor conducts positioning of the patient when radiographing, and the medical doctor controls the emitting switch of radiation after the assistant informs of the completion of positioning or a medical doctor conducts all operations including the positioning of the patient.
Further, for example, in the case of large-scale facilities, it is presumed that a patient has to move around plural floors in the facilities in the time duration from the time of radiographing to the time when a medical doctor starts diagnosis of the patient. However, in the case of small facilities, since the facility is narrow, the moving distance of the patient in the time duration from the time radiographing to the time when the medical doctor starts diagnosis of the patient is short.
Under these conditions, it is hard to imagine that the photographed image mismatches with the patient. Consequently, when the same system as the system used in the large-scale system is used in the small-scale facilities, since it is necessary to generate examination order information starting from the input operation of the patient name, the procedure becomes complicated and the diagnosis efficiency becomes worse.
Further, in order to generate the examination order information including patient information and examination information of the patient in advance and to correlate the examination order information with the photographed image, which has been radiographed, a system, to which respective apparatuses are connected via network corresponding to the main system, such as HIS/RIS, becomes necessary. However, in order to configure this type of system described above, a certain level of cost is necessary, which becomes a problem for a small-scale facility. Further it is not optimum to introduce the same system utilized in the large-scale facilities described above into a small-scale facilities, even though leaving the same configuration concept with decreased number of apparatuses.
Patent Document 1: U.S. Pat. No. 5,334,851
Patent Document 2: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-159476
Patent Document 3: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-311524